Don’t worry, this is not going to be some sordid tale about a urinary tract infection. The headline is simply my attempt at being clever. We cats can be very clever, sometimes too clever for our own good. It’s a good thing we have nine lives.
This is actually the tale of how I got my name, since I promised you that story back when I introduced myself. It is a tale I’ve heard told many times, since people are often curious about my name.
Quite a few people, particularly men, have guessed that my name has something to do with the classic 1943 Western “The Oxbow Incident.” Not true! As far as I know, my mamas have never seen that movie, nor any other Western, since they’re not fond of gunfire, horses and scruffy men. Neither am I, come to think of it.
Those who know a thing or two about geography are more likely to be on the right track. For those of you who don’t know, an oxbow is a U-shaped bend in a river, and my story has more twists and turns than the Mighty Blackstone. (Note to those with attention problems: You can stop reading now, if you haven’t already. I hope the rest of you will sit back in your metaphorical canoes and enjoy the meandering ride.)
Mama G is a sucker for quotes, both the inspirational sort and those that are simply powerful and memorable. One of her favorites goes something like this:
Our lives are like rivers. They go where they have to, not always where we want them to.
It was this quote that would lead to my name. Mama G had won naming rights, since I wasn’t her first choice in cats, although she is pleased as can be with me now.
I was adopted from the Exeter Animal Shelter in December 2012. Coincidentally, the shelter was also my birthplace. My biological mother had been picked up by Animal Control (the cat police!) while she was pregnant. I was quickly adopted back then, along with a sister, but two years later our family lost their home and I was eventually brought back to the shelter. For reasons I could never understand, my sister easily found a new home and bypassed the shelter. So there I sat at the shelter again, alone, confused and afraid.
At the time, my mamas were grieving the loss of my predecessor, Carrot, who had just died at the ripe old age of 19. They had a two-week trip to Alaska planned for the spring and had decided to wait until after that trip before searching for a new cat. Oh, how Those Two crack me up sometimes! After just a few days in a quiet, pet-less house, they were already online looking for a new cat. Ten days after Carrot’s death, they were adopting yours truly. But it all could have ended quite differently.
The day they met me, they had initially planned to drive to a shelter in North Kingstown to look at a cat named Moon Pie that Mama G thought looked promising. In addition to quotes, she is also a sucker for cute names. However, they got a late start and in true Rhode Island fashion decided North Kingstown was too far and instead stopped at the closer shelter in Exeter.
Now Mama G wasn’t crazy about me at first, because I was a bit traumatized by finding myself back at the shelter and acted, well, let’s just say a little standoffish. Instead, she had fallen for a big, gray older cat named Diesel, who was 22 pounds of charm. Unlike me, Diesel knew how to work visitors! Mama C, however, wanted another orange cat and was hooked on my handsomeness, if not my demeanor. Since they didn’t agree on me, they went home, discussed the matter, and decided to compromise: they would adopt both me and Diesel. However, when they called the shelter the next day to tell them of their decision, they were informed that Diesel’s owners had had a change of heart and took him back home!
And so it was that I found a home with Those Two, all to myself. The fact that my tail has two kinks in it only adds to the oxbow mystique. (I think it got shut in a door a couple of times, though I’ve mostly tried to block out those memories.)
I’m a bit ambivalent about being named after a river feature, since like most cats, I despise water. But it makes for good conversation, and it sounds manly. I like that.
Oxbow's World 